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Recommended. (…) Doug Jay & The Blue Jays might not be well-known unless your radar is positioned to pick up on discs that come from smaller independent labels, but make no mistake about it, Jackpot! is no crap-shoot. Jay is a seasoned harp-blower with old-school veins that run hot and his handpicked band provide the necessary racket to complement this lowdown blowdown. (…)The Blue Jays hand in a set that wins as often as back-alley craps master with a pocketful of loaded dice. Christoph “Jimmy” Reiter's guitar work is dazzling with touches of Willie Johnson, Otis Rush, and Bill Jennings, and the rocket-fueled rhythm section of Jasper Mortier on bass and Andre Werkmeister's drumming lock the grooves giving Jay plenty of room to show his wares as a powerful singer and masterful harpman. (…) Killer blues.

(…) The set opens in great style with 'In The Darkest Hour', a churning 50's styled blues replete with brooding vocals, moaning harp, shimmering chords and menacing Magic Sam styled guitar, setting a high standard that is maintained throughout this set. 'Real Bad Girl' stays in that Magic Sam groove, the mood enhanced by Rannenberg's “down in the alley” piano, a pulsing bass line and Reiter's salacious guitar riffs.
Jay freely draws his influences from a variety of sources, “I'll Be Anything For Your Love” being a rollicking slab of pure rock'n'roll that has him sounding like a b lue Gene Vincent; 'Giddy-Up' is a loping swap instrumental that recalls Slim Harpo and Lazy Lester; whilst both George Smith and William Clarke come to mind 'I Jump', a classic slab of swinging West Coast blues.
It is great to hear an artist borrowing from the Otis Spann songbook, Jay laying down wonderful renditions of two Spann classics, 'Half Ain't Been Told' and 'It Must Have Been The Devil'; the former imbued with a 'St James Infirmary' feel courtesy of it's desolate piano and brooding harp and vocals, whilst the latter is pure Chi-Town with superb piano and suitably smokey vocals.
Another influence appears to be Arthur Alexander, whose spectre permeates the Latin tinged soul of 'Ya Hoodoo Me', and the exuberant 'Jackpot', a New Orleans flavoured slab of R&B that is also laced with shades of Huey Smith. The classic 50's R&B of Floyd Dixon's 'When I Get Lucky', where both harp and sax exchange wild jumping riffs as Rannenberg's piano boogies incessantly, and the bouncing New Orleans R&B of 'Each And Every Day' with it's swamp infused harp, are further delights of a set that will leave harp fans drooling for more.
Rating 9